As the Washington Post and others reported, Yelp is now posting food safety alerts for restaurants with poor food safety scores. For example, if you check out Bai Thong Thai in San Francisco, you'll see the big red box we've posted here.

From an everydata perspective, this new data raises all sorts of interesting questions:

Is there a correlation between a restaurant's ranking from diners, and its food safety score from local officials?

Will the food safety warnings change diners' behavior? (An assistant professor from Harvard will be studying the effects of the warnings, according to the Post.)

How timely is the data? As Food Safety Magazine asked, "If a restaurant quickly resolves their food safety issues, how soon will Yelp take down the alert? Days later? Weeks? Months?"

How accurate are past rankings in forecasting the future?

Will a restaurant that advertises on Yelp be treated any differently than a non-advertiser when it comes to these food safety warnings? We certainly have no reason to believe that they would - but it's a question that a smart consumer of data should ask.